Rotten Ending Doesn't Diminish A Good Mystery

Police and medical examiners deal with bad guys, bad deeds and dead bodies. It's a tough, demanding job. We know this because we watch all the cop shows on television.

Their behind-the-scenes work often is shocking and traumatic. Case No. 02-0192S, direct from the files of the Volusia County Medical Examiner's Office, reveals the travails of law enforcement that too often go unnoticed and unheralded.

It has all the makings of the great Sherlock Holmes chronicles -- mysterious, tantalizing hints that point toward dastardly behavior, followed by investigators' uncompromising trek along the path to truth.

It also is a good chuckle.

The story begins in Seminole County at an apartment complex in Lake Mary.

Local police were familiar with the previous tenants of Apartment 200 at 770 Silver Cloud Circle. Officers had been summoned there once on a complaint of domestic violence. Later, the couple disappeared in the middle of the night.

A few months later, a new tenant moved in and soon complained about a foul odor emanating from the wall at the top of the stairs.

On March 20, about lunchtime, property manager Pam Malloy asked maintenance man Kenneth Principato to open the wall, where he found a tiny bundle wrapped in plastic and smelling of rotting flesh.

"Principato removed the bag from the wall and put it in two other bags then moved it outside the front door," Patrolman Stephen Shea wrote in an incident report.

When Detective Kevin Pratt and Sgt. Greg Grayson arrived at the apartment to investigate, they recalled that the previous tenant, the abused woman, had been pregnant.

Not wanting to take any chances, they left the bundle wrapped and took it for analysis to the Medical Examiner's Office in Volusia, which handles coroner duties for Seminole.

"The first thing that goes through your mind was, `Did she abort?' " said Lt. Dave Gilford, spokesman for the Lake Mary Police Department.

"We had no idea what it was. We didn't want to open it up. It could have been human remains. We looked at the worst-case scenario."

A couple of hours later, the Medical Examiner's Office conducted a meticulous external examination of the contents of the mysterious bundle, including taking photos and X-rays.

No autopsy was required.

The official cause of death was determined to be decay, and the victim was quickly identified: a "Subway sandwich."

Case closed.

"It was one of the more interesting cases in law enforcement," Lt. Gilford said. "We just went by the book and did what was necessary. We're glad it turned out the way it did."

But there are some loose ends.

I was unable to talk to a medical examiner to confirm, as I had been told by a confidential source, that the erstwhile sandwich contained olives.

So I put the question to Volusia County spokesman Dave Byron, but he didn't know. He had no clue.

"And I don't know if it was whole wheat or white," he said, chortling.

Then Byron grew serious.

I knew he was contemplating all that happened -- the bizarre nature of Case No. 02-0192S, the disconcerting abandonment and horrific death of a Subway sandwich.